Usually students are nervous about reading to their peers in class, or to others in their English classes. Imagine having to read in a completely different language you only began learning two years before.

Juniors Luey Garcia, Payton Gomien and Landon Young, and sophomores Courtney Mckracken, David Garstecki and Zoey Babyak managed to do exactly that when they went to state for German UIL at Texas State University last Saturday, Feb. 24.

The competition included many schools from all over the state. Each student competed in academic events related to the German language.

“I do poetry reading, so I go up there and you generally dress up for your poem to show you understand the character you’re playing as the persona in the poem,” Gomien said. “You read your poem and then you’re done. It’s literally a five minute event.”

Although many students competed in multiple events, Garcia was the only one who placed. He competed in listening comprehension and won fifth in spelling.

“Listening comprehension is where you’ll here a series of passages read out to you in German and after that you’ll answer your questions based on what you heard,” Garcia said. “You get to see the questions beforehand so like it’s a lot of listening closely for specific words that are in the answers. It’s a scantron test basically.”

The students in the German club and classes hope to return next year with equal or better results.

“I did not attend because I had ROTC,” junior Kendall Toste said, “but everybody there had my full support.”